The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1887-05-17
PHARAOH OF THE OPPRESSION.
Lecture by Rev. Charles A. Dickinson
Last Evening.

At the Second Parish Vestry last evening
Rev. c. A. Dickinson delivered an exceed
ingly interesting lecture On Pharaoh of the
Oppression" He prefaced his lecture by an
expression of his pleasure in the success of
the Society of Christian Endeavor, under
whose auspices the lecture was given. He
spoke hopefully of the Society's future and
the work which he believed it was destined
to accomplish.
In beginning his lecture the lecturer al
luded to the great number of contrasts which
Bible history affords-storm and destruction
repeatedly placed beside hope and Heaven
but perhaps none of these contrasts is more
marked than the characters of Pharaoh and
Moses. And there are few things which
have happened of late years more interest
ing in many ways than the spectacle of this
dead Pharaoh coming forth from his rest of
thirty-three centuries to be as great source
of trouble to the modern scolners of the BIZ
BILE as was the ghost of Hamlet's father to
his murderers.
This pharaoh-Rameses the Great-lived
in so great magnifcence that his people con-
ceiyed him not only royal but divine Amid
the luxury of his court-luxury of which
words can give but faint idea-lived Moses :;
and the oppressor and deliyerer were
brought into relation in a peculiar way
Both were most earnest in their affection for
one strong hearted and Kind hearted woman,
Pharaoh's daughter. In powerful word
picture the lecturer showed the contrast of
the magnificence of the court in which
Moses was reared and the debased condition
Of his Hebrew countrymen in the herds of
slaves without.
But, say the scriptures, after long time
the King OF Egypt died. He was buried,
doubtless with impressive pomp, in his mag
nihcent tomb which had been hewn for him
from the rocks of the Theban Hills, thereto
sleep, as his people believed, for two thoES-
| and years at the end Of which time he was TO
be endowed with immortality. As the years
| went on he lay unmolested while the race of
| Israel rose into power until to escape the
grave robbers, he was hurried from hiding
place to hiding place and at last found a
resting place with forty other royal num-
mics In secret excavation. Here he stayed
for three thousand years. In 1881 German
scientist, by tracing relics which mysterious
| ly kept coming upon the market, after pa
tient exertions found this hiding place,
which was being rified by three brothers.
who sold the relics which had served as
clues. And after little time the great King
In his golden casing was transported down
the Nile in miserable little boat to an
Egyptian Museum. 1t was, no doubt, under
lar different circumstances that he had sailed
up the great river more than three thousand
years before.
From the facts thus briefly stated Mr.
Dickinson drew valuable lessons and
thoughts. The shrivelled face of the dead
King is in itself mighty witness to the
truth OF the Bible records. Every line of
the face sustain the characteristics which
Moses gave him-hardness, cruelty, sensu-
ality-all so indeliby fixed that it seems as
though all the power of Heaven could not
change them truly in this case is it true that
That the evil that men do live after them"
And what lesson does the withered mon
arch teach of the vanity of human things
The dust of his mighty monuments is blown
from one end to the other of this great realm
"a realm no longer-while its former ruler
Is but the chief prize of an Egyptian Curios-
ity shop.
After the lecture 'sociap was held and
Mr.. Dickinson was warmly greeted by his
| former Pensioners.